Things you must do before contacting agents.
1. Have a completed manuscript
a. It has been completely read and corrected by a copy editor
b. It is property formatted
i. Double spaced
ii. 1” margins on all sides
iii. Title page with contact information
iv. No extra spaces at the ends of paragraphs
v. 12 point fonts preferably times roman or courier
vi. Each paragraph indented one half inch
vii. Each new chapter with heading one third down the page
viii. Page number, title and your last name top left in the header on each page
2. You know the word count (not the page count) of your book
3. You know the genre (and the minimum word count for your genre)
4. You have written a kick-ass, intriguing, grammatically correct two page summary of the book that includes how it ends.
5. You have written a five paragraph pitch of the book –
a. First paragraph – greeting, your name, book title, genre and word count.
b. Second paragraph the setup of the book
c. Third paragraph the body of the book
d. Fourth paragraph the ending and resolution of the book
e. Fifth paragraph a thank you, hope to hear from you soon
6. Make a list of all agents that sell your genre.
a. You must not send your murder mystery manuscript to a children’s book agent
b. Break your list into 3 sections with the “A” group is the agents you really want
c. “A” agents list, “B” agents list and “C” agents list
7. If at all possible go to a writer’s conference
a. talk to writers
b. take seminars
c. meet a real agent
Once you have accomplished these items, you can move onto the process of contacting agents which we will discuss next.

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About 3by3 writing method

The author of 12 books, half of them textbooks, two novels and three self help. has struggled with his challenges of completion, distractions, plotting and writers block. Finally after getting stopped I stopped and analyzed what was going on and spent a lot of introspection, research and reading trying to locate the source of these issues. The result of was the 3by3 writing method - a three step program to start and then continue the process of completing a story all the way to publication.